James Buchanan Barnes
by 60sec400
Summary: AU where Bucky and lived on after Steve died in 1944, with a tad bit of a reunion. Bucky Barnes and James Barnes are two different people.


**AU in which Bucky never fell. Disclaimer: I own nothing but the names and family members of Bucky. **

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James Buchanan Barnes was 95 years old in 2012.

Frankly, it was a small wonder that he was still alive. And Competent.

He lived in a neighborhood just north of New York city, ever since the ending of the war and he'd come back. It was a small house with a front porch and a small living room in front of a kitchen, with two bedrooms on a second level and a small basement where the laundry room was based. The kitchen was small and could hardly hold two people but had managed to hold numerous family Thanksgivings.

The yard was grassy, well-kept and there was a row of flowers right in front of the house. The entire property was surrounded by a faded-white fence that he had painted at his wife's request in 1978. The Station Wagon from 76' was still in the drive way, functioning and as loud as ever.

He himself had lived in this house with his wife, a German women who had been removed from Germany to be sent to England and then from England to the US during the war. Benedikta Myer spoke both German and English fluently, often resorting to the former when she was angry, or she couldn't understand why something was happening that she could not control.

She had died in 2010, Leukemia.

They had two children, the elder, who was 50 now, named Mariana. The younger, Tobias, at 46. Mariana had three children, two boys and one girl. The middle already had had his second son, James' second great-grandchild. Tobias had been married and divorced, with two children. One of which was still currently going through high school, the other in middle school.

His children, and the older grandchildren, were well-aware of James' exploits during the war. In fact, the numerous photographs, interviews, medals, and television programs from the 50s, 60s, and 70s that were in the house were clue enough that James Buchanan Barnes was a hero in the war. But whenever one of his grandchildren, teenager or not, would ask him about serving, and if he was a hero. Bucky could only quote one Dick Winters, from the 101st Airborne: "No, I was not a hero, but I served in a company of heroes." When his grandchildren had been young, between the ages of 8-14, a where one or two of them had yet to come into the world, they had been infatuated with their grandparents.

The idea of Captain America had never been much of a topic in the home, mostly because it was almost never mentioned that James had served with Captain Steven Rogers in the Howling Commandos, with whom his sons second son, the one currently in middle school, was obsessed with. The boy had dressed up as Captain America the past two years for Halloween, and James always told him how accurate the costume was. No one in the family had thought to mention it, of course, for most of them figured that he had perhaps at least seen the Captain at one point during the war. The older children, though they could hardly be counted as children, and of course his own children, were well-aware of James life with Captain Rodgers. The photos on the walls in the hallway upstairs, or the medals that hung on the walls in a glass case over the kitchen door, right in front of the small dining room, were clue enough.

During James' life after the war, the years following, he spent most of his time trying to forget Steve Rogers. This was a very difficult thing to do, frankly, because posters and signs and radio shows and comics painted Steve's courageous grin and mighty stance on every street corner of a changing city. For a while, Lt. Bucky Barnes, who had not been called Bucky since 1946, a life where that name defined him, drank a little. He meet with the commandos once a year, during _that _day, and while the world mourned, it was a day for them. Peggy Carter was there, sometimes, and Howard Stark, but most times they would come separately, for their own reasons.

He had bought a small house in the north of New York State, just a twenty minutes' drive from the city. He lived there by himself on his soldiers pension. At some point, in 51' Agent Carter came over, uninvited, and told him off for not getting a job. He was drinking at the time. She told him he needed to move on from Steve, that casualties happened in war. And perhaps he was still holding on to that day in 44' when Steve's plane went down, or perhaps it was the alcohol, but he got angry. They did not talk until 1963, after his daughter was born.

Of course, Agent Carter had been right. So he had gone and gotten a job as a civilian and worked in a paper company for several years as their main accountant. He had always been good with numbers, and even through the mess of war, logic and numbers hadn't changed. He met Benedikta Myer at a company party. She worked as a secretary on the 22nd floor. She told him that she was lucky they'd given her a job. He said the same for himself. Still though, they became fast friends and in 1956 they were married, both living in James' small New York Suburbia house in the white, American dream of the 1950s. They waited a few years before having their first girl, Mariana, in 1963. Tobias was in 1966.

He loved his children dearly. They knew exactly who their father was, Benedikta and James had had no qualms about telling them about the war, and their father, and Captain America, and of the Howling Commandos. And they told their children, at a more appropriate age.

In 1976 they got their second car, a brand new station wagon. In 1978, there a brand new fence surrounding the yard. In 1984, Benedikta got a new kitchen stove. In 85' she got cabinets and tile changes. In 87' a new bed set. The kids both been put through college by 95' and were starting to start their own families. Bucky had gone, through-out the years, to Steve's memorial/grave with the Commandos. One by one they left, till it was just him and Hill. Peggy still called every now and then. Eventually the calls became e-mails. James was still in contact with Howard until his and Maria Starks' death in 1985. He had visited them and their son Anthony during the summers. When Tony graduated MIT, James and his family, and Peggy, as well as Maria Stark, were the only ones there.

Howard's forgetfulness was not lost on either James or Peggy. When Howard and Maria died, they were at the funeral. Tony was stony-faced but he sat through the service without shedding a single tear. When Benedikta asked him if he was alright and if he needed any help with any of the changes, to just call her and James, he only replied with "Nothing's changed."

James Barnes thought a lot about what Tony said in accordance with his parents deaths. Of course, the 17 year old boy was wrong, lots of things had changed.

In 2012, James Barnes was sitting with his daughter as her grandchildren played in the front lawn. It was summer. The windows were all open, a breeze shifting through the windows across the living room.

"Dad, you saw the news, right? About the attack in New York City?" Mariana asked, sending a weary look at her father. James shrugged, and grunted slightly. Of course he had seen the news, he turned it on every day at 7 o'clock and only changed it to football if there was a game or the gardening channel.

Mariana pushed forward. "There was a man there, you know, dressed in—."

"I saw it, Mari. Captain America, a look-a-like. Something from… well, some sort of ploy. I don't believe a word of it," James said, and shook his head.

Mariana was holding a set of his photo albums. Out of the corner of his eye he could barely see a familiar picture of him and Steve sitting on top of a fence in France, smiling and waving to the camera. Steve wasn't even in his Captain America clothes.

"Dad, maybe you missed it. They found him."

He knew that too, but he didn't want to believe it.

"Found Captain Rogers, hmm?" he asked.

Mariana nodded. "In ice, on accident, I might add. He's alive."

James sighed. "I only doubt you on this because I had not seen my frie… Captain Rogers in 70 years, Mari. Even if he was alive, there's no explanation on how. And he's made no move to call me or contact me. There is not a single clue on whether his memory is intact and if he can even recall a Bucky Barnes at all. I doubt you because Steve Rogers is dead, Mrs. Carter was there. She heard it."

Mariana had open up the plastic covering on the album and plucked the photo of him and Steve on the fence out, and handed it to him. Then, out of her purse, she pulled out a photo taken by a news reporter of a close up of Captain America. "Just think about it dad. I'm going to get some more wine," Mariana told him, and stood up to head to the kitchen. He sighed and closed his eyes before he looked at the pictures. The more recent one was printed, in full color, on a piece of printer paper. It was still sharper than the picture in his right hand, the one of both him and Steve. He looked at their faces.

They were, of course, the same face.

Steve was alive. He had known it, but for all those years, Captain Steven Rogers had been dead to the world. But now, no, he was not dead, he was frozen in ice, and still the same 25 year old man he had ever been. He wondered why Steve hadn't called.

Perhaps he believed James was dead. Or maybe he had not been given permission to talk to James. Maybe James Buchanan Barnes would never know. Maybe the man after the war, the one who had gotten married and settled down working for a paper company with two children and who went by James and had a wonderful wife was different from the womanizer of the 1940s, the one who went by Bucky the one who had been in WWII and who had almost fallen off a train, most likely to his impending death.

There was a knock outside of the living room door.

"Mariana?" he called. There was no answer. The children were quiet outside. Another knock, and slowly he got up off the couch and walked over to the door.

He turned the knob slowly and pulled open the door. With surprising clarity, James opened the door to a large blond haired man with a shorter red-headed woman behind him, a few steps down. He was dressed in a leather jacket with a blue button-up underneath, tucked into a pair of nice khaki-like pants. An almost picture perfect copy of a man from the 1940s. He had dark sunglasses over his eyes and squinted a little in the sun. 'I'm sorry to disturb you," the man said in a very familiar voice. "But is this the Barnes residence?"

James stared at him and then grunted. "Depends who's asking."

"Um," the man glanced back at the redhead, who stared at him with encouraging dominance. "I just… this is kind of hard to explain. I'm looking for a man named Bu—James Barnes? Uh, James Buchanan Barnes? Is he here?" He glanced back at the redhead.

"I see," James said. "And then am I to suppose you are Steven Rogers?"

The man blanched. "Um, yes. This is— I am— Steve, I go by Steve, actually."

"Ah, well than you should probably refer to me by my name properly," James said and he smiled just a little.

Steve slowly lifted off the sunglasses, his face paling. "Bucky."

"Steve."

It was a moment before they embraced, however difference there was in their ages, it didn't matter anymore. Good friends had reunited.

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_Lost time is never found again— _Benjamin Franklin


End file.
